A subreddit for frugal living tips, questions, and ideas. To us, frugal living DOES NOT mean cheap at the cost of utility, but rather finding ways to maximize what we get out of products and services while minimizing cost.

I've heard a lot of great things! We did a tour through one a couple weeks back and were impressed. We were about to move, though, so haven't joined yet. Now that our new home is settled we'll be getting a membership.

Costco is probably your best bet out there. My mom and I have worked for two of the top food suppliers in the country (for hospitality, restaurants, government, etc.) They allow employees to buy food and supplies at only 1% over cost, but Costco is frequently cheaper. And not by a small margin.

Amazon doesn't compete at all on groceries (besides maybe Amazon Local, but I've never lived in a place that offered it). But I prefer them for household things like paper towels, TP, light bulbs, toothbrush heads, diapers, sponges, laundry soap, etc. They are comparable with Costco until you factor in Subscribe and Save, which gives a discount of up to 15% off. And less shopping to do is always a good thing.

Yeah I bulk bought some chips from Amazon before and it really wasn't that much of a saving. Mainly I did it because I was having a hard time finding them in the store. I do like the idea of their subscribe and save, but really need to figure how much of what and how often before trying it out.

The nice thing about Subscribe and Save is that you can delay a shipment, change the frequency of delivery, or cancel at any time without penalty. It does take a little time to find out how quickly you go through some things, though.

If you like subscribe and save, try to get five items a month. Currently my family and I buy our shampoo/conditioner, body soap, coffee, rice, and paper towels for a 20% discount. You really have to do your research prior to buying, though, but when you do save its awesome!

My wife and I are 59 yrs old, no children living at home. We buy in bulk with many things. Paper products, cleaning supplies, cases of canned goods, frozen meat, cheese, light bulbs, air filters, coffee, sugar, flour, cornmeal, pasta, rice, beans, onions ( I buy 10-30 lbs at a time bring them home chop them up, drop into sandwich bags which are in turn placed in 1 gallon freezer bags)
We have 2 chest freezers and a very large pantry. Because we buy our goods when they are priced very low and we keep several months of supplies on hand, we are never in a position where we need to buy supplies when prices are high. The freezers and pantry are our buffer against spiking prices.
We use Sam's Club, a local Amish Bulk Foods store and grocery salvage stores, in addition to Food City, Krogers and Walmart.

Bonus our home owner's insurance covers frozen goods in the freezers. Nice to have when you keep a 25 cu ft and a 14 cu ft freezer well packed.

I chop up my onions and place each chopped onion in a cheap sandwich bag. That bag goes along with 8-10 others in a large ziplock bag, which is dated and frozen. When needed, I open the ziplock bag and take out how ever many small bags I need. That is usually one. I can pour it frozen into a sauce, soup or stew or I can microwave it for 30 seconds and thaw it out. They keep for up to a year if you squeeze as much air out of the bag as possible. I buy large Vidalia onions in season for 59 cents to 69 cents a pound and big Red Onions for 69.-79 cents a pound.
I can chop and bag 10 lbs of onions in less than 15 mins.

We're similar to you, I think, but I'll preface this by saying that if you have the discipline to really clip coupons, you've got me beat and this is likely not the post for you.

That said, my wife and I are working on being more conscious about budgeting and Costco's a part of that. We buy paper products (toilet paper, paper towels, those Lysol wipes - I'm sure you could find a more frugal person who makes their own, but that person is likely also unwilling to spend money on paper towels in lieu of rags, and I'm just not that guy). Similarly, things like razors and big containers of Advil gel caps - stuff that won't spoil, essentially. Alcohol, too, I suppose, although we don't drink much.

I've just learned about their Kirkland organic olive oil, which is apparently supposed to be great. We save a fortune on dog food and dog treats there, as well (although they had some tainted ones a few years back). Costco has a great meat selection: I buy bulk meats (steak in particular) quite often (planning on a trip today, actually).

I also frequently buy bulk fruits and vegetables there, but I think you have to be selective. For me, it's lemons because they last a while, cherries because the price is good and I usually finish them, spinach because it cooks down so much.

TL;DR I try to go for items that are priced well, are of high quality, but either freeze well (meats) won't spoil (razor blades, deodorant, paper products, cleaning supplies, alcohol) or when cooked, will cook down substantially (spinach). An unwritten rule here is that if you'll get sick of it before you run out of it or it expires, you shouldn't buy it from Costco (examples for me here are a lot of their prepared foods, some of their monster-sized cheeses, huge bags of pretzels and snacks, twelve-packs of muffins, etc).

Yes, this sounds exactly like what we're thinking of doing. I figured I will leave the fresh produce to the store a couple blocks from our house, though. It's a quick walk when we need something fresh.

Do you crunch any numbers on your purchases? I'm starting up a spread sheet of common things we buy and how much they cost at our four main stores: Costco, HEB, Kroger, and Amazon.

I know bulk buying can really save you money but I've also heard to watch out for sneaky bulk items that actually cost you more.

I'm too lazy to put together that kind of spreadsheet, sadly. There's probably some enterprising soul out there who could really do that kind of analysis and I'd certainly be interested in seeing it though! We've sort of found the items that work for us and just buy them consistently. There are also certain items (the King Crab Legs, for example) that are supposedly great and just flat-out cheap - if you're in the market for them.

I mean, I bought a 60" TV there for well under a grand there last October when the competition was all in the $1200-1500+ range. Gas is currently $.20 less there than it is at the neighborhood spot.

No problem -- those are the ones that came to mind, occasionally there are things that we do need that are bigger purchases but not regular purchases. You can check out addicted to costco and check through the old scans of coupon books to see what kinds of coupons they offer and get an idea of timing.

edit: sorry my coupon book link doesn't exactly work. when you get the error, click the address bar and hit enter to manually load the page and it should work

Some household non-perishables have a sales cycle of 6-12 weeks, if you read your flyers every week you start to get a sense of the cycles. There are some things that I never buy unless they're on sale and then I stock up:

Toilet paper

Laundry detergent

Flour

Dishwasher detergent (or I get it at costco)

Things I buy in big quantities to save money:

Powdered milk, it's no cheaper (here) than regular milk unless I buy the big bag that lasts me for six months of baking.

Cheese, I get the 2kg bricks at costco, grate it and freeze for pizza's etc.

Tortellini - way cheaper at costco

A couple of times a year I go to the states and stock up on things that are cheaper there:

Canned refried beans ($3 cheaper there!)

Dried pasta

Cereal

And then through late summer and autumn I drive out to the farms and pick up bulk produce (at huge savings) and either freeze it, can it, or store it in the garage depending on what it is.

Costco has AMAZING produce! I would go with a roommate and split the giant amounts on grapes and things that don't freeze well. Their quinoa is INSANELY cheap, like 1/2 what I pay other places. The unit price on their toilet paper, etc, was the same as our local grocery store, but our stores are cheap here, so it may be worth it for you. Prepared freezer foods and hummus are also a great deal there.